I agree that it's a California wide problem, though I think the cause is slightly different in different parts of the state. What do you mean by:
> The bigger government is the first one messing up housing.
Do you mean that State policies are the ones messing up housing? I think that Prop 13 and CEQA get named sometimes for stopping housing development, but a far bigger hurdle are the local zoning policies, and the veto power of local communities.
Are you suggesting something like a state-wide policy of by-right development for plans that meet local code and zoning regulations? That would definitely help reduce building costs, but it won't be enough to allow the amount of housing that is suggested in the original article.
Seconded opinion for strong regional government with zoning control. If the property owner fiefdoms aren't going to address the problem, it's time to take solving that problem away from them.
To give an example of how bad this is, the city of Atherton has sued Caltrain 7 times over the electrification project, the latest one related to (wait for it..) the use of 5 45 foot poles instead of 10 35 foot ones. https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2018/03/01/caltrain-and-ath...
And this despite the fact it comprises less than a mile of the track and doesn't even stop at the Atherton station during weekdays.
How can anyone expect this problem to get any better without major changes to zoning control and major revisions to the property tax/rent subsidies? I'm not holding my breath, and neither are all the other people that are starting to think about leaving.
Wait, the fact that local residents can't even use the big ugly mass transit line going through their neighbourhood is meant to make them somehow more sympathetic to it?
As I understand it, there is discussion to start using the station again after they finish electrification, which of course assumes the town doesn't try to stop that somehow. It will also reduce air (and probably noise) pollution to nearby properties, because the trains will no longer be running huge motors spewing massive amounts of diesel exhaust while flying through the town.
None of that matters. Atherton is the wealthiest zip code in the country, and is comprised completely of high-end houses and mansions owned by the super rich, most of whom couldn't care less about mass transit or regional growth issues. They've got theirs, the hell with everybody else. Their strategy for keeping it this way is to fight all change, even if it's mutually beneficial.
All the cities in california are failing to build for the demand. SF and LA are obvious because they are the biggest, but its a state level problem.
The core problem to me is taxation: California should have a Land value tax, but instead of that, it rewards owners with things like prop 13, and punishes workers by using sales taxes and income taxes.
Just changing that taxation would change everything: owners would not block development anymore because their land has negative worth unless it houses multiple people. Right now a big building that houses 1000 people pays more property taxes than a few houses that house 10. A Land value tax would shift the burden and make the few houses super expensive, while rent remains the same, and workes see increases in income and also in cheaper goods.
Of this there is no economic doubt in my mind. But politically, neither rent control nor prop 13 are revokable,so my assessment is that SF will hit a ceiling of growth. Maybe the last property owners will be left holding the bag as their expectations of growth will never come about. And then another city will pick up the slack, one without this issue.
Totally agree that Prop 13 is a huge problem, it's a hugely regressive tax that seems completely out of place in a state that's supposed to be liberal or even leftist. California's liberalism is only skin deep, particularly among the wealthy, who pull their kids of out public school increasingly too.
Modern liberalism is contrary to the free market. If the market were allowed to work, you wouldn’t have a housing shortage. The housing shortage is because of liberalism, not despite it. You don’t have housing shortages in Houston. High density projects are typically opposed (in Houston) by the NPR-listening liberals inside the loop. For example, the Houston Heights, Upper Kirby District and other enclaves of very liberal, higher income people. In Katy, Texas (a Houston suburb,) if you want to build a 25 story condo development — you build it. Try the same thing inside of liberal areas of Houston, no way, they’ll fight it with all they’ve got while proudly displaying campaign signs from Democrat politicians.
Democrats, in my experience, are very anti-development, using hot-button words like “environment” or “historic preservation” as tools to support their NIMBYism.
I was at a restaurant in Cupertino last week and overheard some gents talking about a proposed new housing project in San Francisco and they said that the meeting consisted of people making arguments like, “but this project would anger Mother Earth.” Apparently, there is a Druid constituency with whom the Bay Area has to contend.
This isn’t an indictment of “liberalism” — merely an observation that rich liberals can be the worst sort. The vast majority of Silicon Valley are self-styled liberals, without a conservative within 100 miles, yet despite the name, the folks in charge are about as regressive as they come.
This is a large topic change from Prop 13 being a very conservative policy, and not liberal or leftist, but I'd like to challenge it a bit.
As far as liberals being contrary to markets, I disagree 100%. In most parts of the world "liberal" means using market based approaches to solving problems. The neo-liberals are extremely pro-market, and though I'm not one, that's definitely a thing.
There are some leftists who are anti-markets, just as there are lots of rightists that are anti-markets. NIMBYism crosses both liberal and conservative, and is mostly homeowners. Homeowners in California are highly enriched for conservatives.
Being anti-housing is something that has crossed party lines in California and it's not terribly useful to analyze it in the terms of national politics. Remember that California was the home of both Nixon and Reagan, and their policies have had long lasting effects on the state, so it's not a strictly liberal place.
Prop 13 which is decidedly against liberal values (basically a Grover Norquist anti-tax by any means possible policy), and that's the particular policy that the original poster was talking about. I don't think it's the biggest impediment, though it may be a small one for motivating people, IMHO.
